 Kia ora, Alina here with Kiwi Connect. I'm here at New Frontiers 2016 with Guy Ryan who is the CEO of Inspiring Stories and was the 2015 Young New Zealander of the Year. Tell us about your experience being the Young New Zealander of the Year, that's quite an honour. Yeah quite an honour. So that was last year 2015 and I guess it built on celebrating the work, the programmes, the partnerships that we've developed to support Young New Zealanders to unleash their potential to change the world. Which has been this incredible journey over the last five years. And then I guess the Young New Zealander of the Year award helped to further raise and amplify the profile of some of the work that we're doing, some of the young people that we work with. But also had its challenges as well I would say to be very honest. I think on one hand just wanting to really honour and do that award justice but at the same time also getting so many speaking requests. Can you speak at this, can you speak at this, can you speak at this, can you do this media interview like literally five to ten every single week and having to kind of balance that and wanting to do it justice but also commit to doing the work that we do in supporting Young New Zealanders. It's a hard thing to balance sometimes. Yeah I imagine quite the balancing act. In what sort of ways do you encourage and support Young New Zealanders to realise their potential? Yeah so I mean broadly speaking we talk about this journey from inspiration to action so trying to support young people to explore big issues that affect their future. You know what's their vision for the future of their place or the world, opportunities to develop their skills, their capability, their connections, their confidence to grow their ideas to make a difference. So to do that we run a big national event called Festival for the Future which is amazing. We run a nine week intensive summer accelerator programme called Live the Dream those are probably two of the bigger flagship initiatives that we run and then a few other layers of programmes and partnerships to support young people on their journey. Right, one of the themes that we've been talking a lot here in the frontiers about is the idea of story and the role of story and the changes that we're going to see over the next decade or two or ten here in New Zealand. What role do you see story playing in the work that these young people are doing? Huge, hugely important. So I mean the name of our organisation is inspiring stories and part of the thinking before setting it up is I've done a master's of looking at three things actually, looking at science around and climate change, psychology around attitude change and behaviour change and then how story and narrative can play a role in changing attitudes and behaviour and I think you think about the picture that the media often portrays as a very negative one of young people and I think in the simplest sense one of the most important things that we can do is celebrate the good stuff that's going on but frame that in a way that is a compelling and engaging narrative. I think having access to positive visible role models that young people can relate to, stories can shape our attitudes and behaviour and powerful stories can be catalysts for action. So if stories can be catalysts for action then once I'm inspired to do something what's my pathway forwards then to actually do that thing and develop my capability so that I can be more effective. So I think in transforming our world for the better in the many ways and forms that we need to do that stuff I think storytelling has a huge role to play. And are you seeing a lot of similar themes emerging in the type of work that these young people are undertaking? Are there particular issues that they are drawn to be working towards? Yes and no, I think there's a huge diversity in terms of the dreams and aspirations that young people have in terms of the issues that they think are important. Just to give you a sense, some of the young people that we work with have worked across arts and culture, health and wellbeing, housing, transport, energy, youth development, community development, technology, education and it's very diverse. I think it's diverse and beautiful as our world is as are the dreams and aspirations and areas that young people want to make a difference and I think the diversity gives it its richness as well. Sounds like these are the young leaders for the world that we need maybe we'll see one of them being young New Zealander of the Year in a few years. I'm absolutely sure we will, yeah, it's a matter of time, right? And I think our biggest challenge is how we actually because sometimes the biggest barrier is confidence and actually empowering a young person to think that well, why can't they change the world, you know and why can't they rally a group of people to grow an idea that can actually make a profound difference in our communities or the world that we live in, of course they can but sometimes things seem hugely scary and overwhelming and that can be a really hard place to be so backing young people in the simplest sense is a really important thing that we as communities in a nation can do. Fantastic. Thanks so much, Gai. Thank you very much.